‘No peculiarity of the Scottish Highlanders has been the subject of so much controversy
as their dress.’ W.F. Skene, I.C. 1834, 25.1
A great deal has been written about Highland dress. It is certainly archaic but can a woven plaid be Mesolithic? Skin clothing has evidently been replaced by woollen textiles but they were felted or fulled to make them thicker, more water-tight, more resistant to wear – more like skin, in fact.
The plaid
Woolly sheep did not arrive in Scotland before the Bronze Age and the production of plaids still awaited the arrival of the loom. Before then hunters wore garments made of fine leather and skins, 'borrowed' from the mountain hare, fox, wolf, red deer, seal and other animals. There is little direct information about skin clothing but a wonderful cape made of otter skins was found under six feet of peat in a bog in Co. Antrim, sewn so carefully that it looks like a single piece2 Gaelic gives a clue as tonn means 'skin, hide' but a tonnag was latterly a small square of coarse woollen cloth worn as a shawl by women.
The plaid or feile-mor which replaced cloaks made of skin or fur was probably of similar size and was made of two lengths of woven material sewn together along the selvedge. It is a primitive garment - simply a length of material folded, wrapped, pinned and belted. A recent origin for woollen fabrics in Scotland is also suggested by the absence of early looms. The warp-weighted Frisian loom is associated with post-Roman immigration into England (and with the manufacture of cloaks) but was not a feature of Highland Scotland. Caesar mentions that the aborigines of England in his day still wore skins. G. seòl ‘loom’ can also mean ‘bed’ and conjures up an image of a simple frame with the main elements sunk in an earthen floor. But for a loom capable of making a length of material one metre in width and several metres in length we have to wait for the Norse and their warp-weighted looms in the ninth century. From descriptions of woven clothing, a modern loom had arrived in the Highlands by the late sixteenth century. Grant’s Highland housewife, though she attended to every other process herself, took her hanks of yarn to a local weaver.3
The plaid, like the skin cloak, could serve as a tent. ‘In rain they formed the plaid into folds, and laying it on their shoulders were covered as with a roof. When they were obliged to lie abroad in the hills, in their hunting-parties, or tending their cattle, or in war, the plaid served them both for bed and for covering: for when three men slept together, they could spread three folds of cloth below and six above them. The garters of their stockings were tied under their knees, with a view to give more freedom to the limb and climb the mountains with greater ease. The lightness and looseness of their dress; the custom they had of always going on foot, never on horseback; their love of long journeys, but above all, that patience of hunger and every kind of hardship, which carried their bodies forward even after their spirits were exhausted, – made them exceed all other European nations in speed and perseverance of march. Montrose’s marches were sometimes sixty miles a day.’4
The ordinary Highlander made do with a skimpier garment. ‘The common habit of the ordinary Highlanders is far from being acceptable to the eye; with them a small part of the plaid, which is not so large as the former, is set in folds and girt round the waist to make of it a short petticoat that reaches half way down the thigh, and the rest is brought over the shoulder, and then fastened before below the neck, often with a fork and sometimes with a bodkin or sharpened piece of stick, so that they make pretty near the appearance of the people in London when they bring their gowns over their heads to shelter them from the rain. In this way of wearing the plaid, they have nothing else to cover them, and are often barefoot, but some I have seen shod with a kind of pumps made out of a raw cow hide with the hair turned outward, which being ill made, the wearer’s foot looked something like a rough footed hen or pigeon: These are called quarrants5 and are not only offensive to the sight, but intolerable to the smell of those who are near them. The stocking rises no higher than the thick of the calf, and from the middle of the thigh to the middle of the leg is a naked space, which being exposed to all weathers, becomes tanned and freckled’6
‘When the Highlanders are constrained to lie among the hills in cold dry windy weather, they sometimes soak the plaid in some river or bourn; and then holding up a corner of it a little above their heads, they turn themselves round and round, till they are enveloped by the whole mantle. Then they lay themselves down on the heath, upon the leeward side of some hill, where the wet and the warmth of their bodies make a steam like that of a boiling kettle. The wet, they say, keeps them warm by thickening the stuff, and keeping the wind from penetrating.’7
Tufted cloaks
A probable precursor to the plaid was the tufted cloak. A rectangle of coarse woollen canvas, 2-3 metres square, was reinforced with tufts of natural wool. Such rectangular cloaks and bed-rugs consisting of a tufted woollen fabric on a coarse woollen backing had a wide distribution from Central Asia to Finland, Scandinavia, Shetland, Scotland and Ireland.
‘I found Granny mending her Shetland bedrug, a thing like a big square hearthrug made by threading wool through a heavy woollen canvas, looping it over two fingers of your left hand, then locking the loop with a small stitch at the base. The loops are cut later.'8 The canvas was made at home. Like all hand-woven fabrics it could be no wider than the span of the weaver and so, like the plaid, it was made of two lengths of similar weight joined together. Tufted cloaks feature in several of the descriptions of Highland dress. They are evidently a home-made replacement for a fur cloak or blanket.
Trews
In Breadalbane in 1789 people still wore 'short stockings tied below the knee; truish, a genteeler kind of breeches and stockings all of one piece; cuoranen, a laced shoe of skin, with the hairy side out, rather disused; kelt or philabeg, g.d. little plaid, or short petticoat, reaching to the knees, substituted of late to the longer end of the plaid; and lastly, the pouch of badger and other skins, with tassels hanging down before them.'9 Trews were a kind of double legging made of fine woollen material and joined at the top. Being cut on the bias they were very close-fitting (I suspect they were seldom taken off). They were supported by a strip of hide tied round the haunches, and for decency’s sake ‘a square piece of cloth hangs down before.’ Trews are probably a direct copy of Mesolithic leggings. Similar trousers were worn in Germany and far to the East in Siberia.
Shoes
Rough deerskin shoes for winter use were used into the 18th century and are probably another surviving Mesolithic element. In 1543 John Elder, a Highland priest wrote to King Henry VIII of England to explain why the English called the Scots 'redshanks' or 'rough-footed Scots'.10 'We of all people can tolerate, suffer and away best with cold, for both summer and winter (except when the frost is most vehement), going always bare-legged and bare-footed, our delight and pleasure is not only in hunting of red deer, wolves, foxes and graies, [For grey Chambers suggests ‘badger’ but badgers were not game animals. Scots grice ‘young pig’ is even less likely. A graie might be G. greigh 'herd (of horses)'.] whereof we abound, and have great plenty, but also in running, leaping, swimming, shooting and throwing of darts: therefore, in so much as we use and delight so to go always, the tender delicate gentlemen of Scotland call us Redshanks. And again in winter, when the frost is most vehement (as I have said) which we can not suffer bare footed, so well as snow, which can never hurt us when it comes to our girdles, we go a hunting, and after that we have slain red deer, we flay off the skin, by and by, and setting of our bare foot on the inside thereof, for need of cunning shoemakers, by your Grace’s pardon, we play the sutters; compassing and measuring so much thereof, as shall reach up to our ankles, pricking the upper part thereof also with holes, that the water may repass when it enters, and stretched up with a strong thwang of the same, meeting above our said ankles, so, and please your noble Grace, we make our shoes.’
Purses
Everything a Highlander wore or carried, down to the kindling kept dry inside his hat, was designed for self-sufficiency during an expedition (typically a joint hunt) lasting several days. Carvings of Pictish hunters (c.800 AD) show them with pouches slung round their necks. These have been interpreted as satchels for holy books; but the Picts were illiterate pagans. A Highlander was more likely to carry fire-lighting materials, culinary herbs, a scallop shell to serve as a cup, and tobacco. A Frenchman saw the wild Scots c.1100 as ‘ferocious among themselves but elsewhere unwarlike, with bare legs, shaggy cloaks, a purse hanging from their shoulders, rolling down from their marshy borders.’11 Pilgrims carried similar pouches and used them for similar purposes. Both Picts and pilgrims also wore cloaks with hoods (Lat. cucullus ‘hood, cowl’, G. cochull ‘cap, capsule, hood, mantle’). The hood may be an extremely old feature, as hooded garments are found in Siberia and among the Inuit.
John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, wrote in 1578 'All, both nobles and common people, wore mantles of one sort (except that the nobles preferred those of several colours). These were long and flowing, but capable of being neatly gathered up at pleasure into folds… Wrapped up in these for their only covering, they would sleep comfortably. They had also shaggy rugs, such as the Irish use at the present day, some fitted for a journey, others to be placed on a bed. The rest of their garments consisted of a short woollen jacket, with the sleeves open below for the convenience of throwing their darts, and a covering for the thighs of the simplest kind, more for decency than for show or a defence against cold.12 This abundance of woven fabric, both woollen and linen, appears to mark the arrival of improved looms, for the plaid is no longer ‘a light blanket’, though it has not yet entirely replaced the tufted cloak.
A Highlander on the move appears to have carried with him everything he owned. In his satirical poem on the Highland Host who invaded Lowland Scotland in 1678, William Cleland notes that the leaders, who were mounted, wore slashed coats, trews, brogues, pirrie (small) plaids, and blue bonnets with tobacco pipes stuck in them. They carried dirks, pistols, snuff mills, bags of onions, rams’ horns of whisky, targes made of wood, studs and hide, and two-handed swords. He fails to mention the kilt belt, sporran (containing a strike-a-light and tobacco), oxter knife, shot pouch, and powder horns ‘hung in strings, garnished with beaten nails and burnished brass’. ‘Had they not need of bulk and bones, Who fight with all these arms at once?’13
The Fair Sex
In 1578 ‘Their women’s attire was very becoming. Over a gown reaching to the ankles, and generally embroidered, they wore large mantles of the kind already described, and woven of different colours. Their chief ornaments were the bracelets and necklaces with which they decorated their arms and necks’14 Martin Martin, 1695, provided more detail. ‘The ancient dress wore by the women, and which is yet wore by some of the vulgar, called arisad, is a white plad, having a few stripes of black, blue and red.15 It reached from the neck to the heels, and was tied before on the breast with a buckle of silver, or brass, according to the quality of the person. I have seen some of the former of a hundred marks value; it was broad as any ordinary pewter plate, the whole curiously engraven with various animals, &c. There was a lesser buckle, which was wore in the middle of the larger, and above two ounces weight; it had in the centre a large piece of chrystal or some finer stone, and this was set all round with several finer stones of a lesser size.16 The plad being pleated all round, was tied with a belt below the breast; the belt was of leather, and several pieces of silver intermixed with the leather like a chain. The lower end of the belt had a piece of plate, about eight inches long and three in breadth, curiously engraven; the end of which was adorned with fine stones or pieces of red coral. They wore sleeves of scarlet cloth, closed at the end as men’s vests, with gold lace round them, having plate buttons set with fine stones. The head-dress was a fine kerchief of linen strait about the head, hanging down the back taper-wise; a large lock of hair hangs down their cheeks above their breast, the lower end tied with a knot of ribbands’17 This splendour has vanished without trace.
Fighting
The focus on warfare has much to do with the fact that in later Gaelic words for hunting were used for warfare. References to old battles are most of the time - perhaps always - references to deer drives or tinchells. This confusion between archaic Gaelic, later Gaelic and English is responsible for most of the incredible stories that have replaced facts in Scottish ethnography.
‘The ancient way of fighting was by set battles; and for arms some had broad two-handed swords and head-pieces, and others bows and arrows. When all their arrows were spent, they attacked one another with sword-in-hand. Since the invention of guns, they are very early accustomed to use them, and carry their pieces with them wherever they go; they likewise learn to handle the broadsword and target. The chief of each tribe advances with his followers within shot of the enemy, having first laid aside their upper garments; and after one general discharge, they attack them with sword-in-hand, having their target on their left hand (as they did at Kelicranky).’18 John Major, early in the sixteenth century, added that 'The common people of the Highland Scots rush into battle, having their body clothed with a linen garment manifoldly sewn and painted or daubed with pitch, with a covering of deerskin’.19
Weapons
Bows and arrows, ultimately Mesolithic if not Palaeolithic, were still in use in the seventeenth century. But even the ancient dirk was no more than a few centuries old. ‘The blade is straight, and generally above a foot long; the back near an inch thick; the point goes off like a tuck, and the handle is something like a sickle.’20 Pennant ‘frequently saw this weapon in the shambles of Inverness converted into a butcher’s knife,’ which was no doubt its primary use.21
